Different Understandings of Miracle (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes
Different understandings of miracle
Introduction to studying miracles
Understanding what we mean by 'miracle' is fundamental to Religious Studies because it raises important questions about the nature of reality and the function of religion. The study of miracles connects to broader issues including:
- The nature of scientific evidence and whether the universe is predictable
- The relationship between religion and science
- Whether God intervenes in the world
- The moral implications of divine action
- The nature of religious language and the supernatural
When examining miracles, we need to consider whether they are real, objective events in the world or whether they are subjective interpretations of ordinary events. This leads us to two main approaches: realist and anti-realist understandings.
Two Fundamental Approaches to Understanding Miracles:
The distinction between realist and anti-realist views forms the foundation of all philosophical discussion about miracles. Realists believe miracles are objective events that actually happen in the external world, while anti-realists argue that miracles are subjective interpretations of events that exist primarily in the mind of the observer.
Realist views of miracles
What is realism?
A realist approach to miracles maintains that they are objective events that actually happen in the external world. This perspective draws on scientific realism, which holds several key principles:
In science, realists believe:
- Our best scientific theories give us true (or approximately true) descriptions of the world
- These theories describe things we cannot directly observe but which must exist (such as quarks in particle physics)
- The world is mind-independent - it exists as it is regardless of what we think about it
Applied to miracles, realists believe:
- Miracles are real events that genuinely occur in the world
- They are brought about by God, or by someone empowered by God (such as Moses or Elijah), or by another spiritual force
- God exists as a transcendent, unobservable being whose care for the world is evidenced through miracles
- These claims are true even though we don't understand everything about how miracles work
When a realist speaks about a miracle, they are making three types of claim: they are describing something that happened in the external world, they are telling us about the nature of the event, and they may be making a claim about the supernatural cause of the event.
Types of realist miracles
Realist understandings of miracles can be divided into three main categories, each with different characteristics and implications.
1. Miracles as extraordinary coincidences
Some events are called miracles because they involve remarkable coincidences that benefit someone. A famous example is Juliane Koepcke, a German-Peruvian student who in 1971 survived a plane crash that killed 91 other people. The plane fell 10,000 feet after being struck by lightning, yet Juliane survived with injuries including a broken collar-bone. She then survived nine days in the Peruvian rainforest before reaching help.
Historical Example: The Beatrice Church Choir
In 1950, at West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice, Nebraska, a gas explosion demolished the church building at the exact time when choir practice should have been taking place. All 15 choir members would have been killed, but each one was late for different reasons, so nobody died.
This event is considered miraculous because of the extraordinary odds against all 15 members being late simultaneously for completely unrelated reasons.
The problem with coincidence miracles:
These events are called miracles because of the extraordinary odds against them happening. However, this realist definition is limited - it only describes the event as an amazing coincidence. It doesn't necessarily involve any claim about God's involvement. That interpretation comes from the observers.
Moral Questions About Coincidence Miracles:
If God helped Juliane Koepcke survive, what about the other 91 passengers and crew? Were they less worthy? If God manipulated circumstances to make the choir members late, why does God allow countless other people to die in similar disasters? This raises serious moral questions about selective divine intervention.
2. Miracles as events brought about by divine power
This category includes events where God acts through people to bring about miraculous results. The Bible contains numerous accounts of this type, particularly:
- Moses performing the ten plagues on Egypt through the power of Yahweh (Exodus 7:8-11:10)
- Moses parting the Red Sea when the Israelites were trapped between the water and pursuing Egyptian chariots (Exodus 13:17-14:22)
- The miracles of Jesus recorded in the New Testament, which many Christians interpret as historical events
Religious significance:
This understanding is particularly important in Catholic tradition. The Catholic Church maintains that miracles demonstrate divine power and compassion. They invite belief in God and strengthen faith, though they are not meant to satisfy curiosity about magic or to abolish all evils.
The Catholic Church and Miracles:
The Church has a 'Congregation for the Causes of the Saints' which investigates claims of miracles performed by those being considered for canonisation (becoming saints). A person cannot become a Saint unless they have performed miracles, as these are taken as signs of God's action through that person.
Something is only accepted as a miracle if there is strong evidence for it, no scientific explanation exists, and it resulted from the direct action of the person being considered for canonisation or from prayers inspired by that person.
3. Miracles as violations of natural law
The classic account of miracles as violations of natural law comes from David Hume. His definition has three key parts:
- A miracle is a transgression of a law of nature
- It occurs by a particular volition (an act of will)
- It is caused by the Deity (God) or by the intervention of some invisible agent
John Mackie, though an atheist, accepted that the concept of God's intervention is conceivable. He used the analogy of a closed system in the natural world - one that operates according to its own laws - which can nevertheless be intruded upon from outside, bringing about changes the system wouldn't produce on its own. We can think of the natural world as normally being such a closed system, with a supernatural intervention occasionally intruding from outside to produce effects the natural world couldn't achieve alone.
Why this view is popular:
For many people, this violation of natural law is what makes a miracle stand out as genuinely miraculous. Mere pleasant surprises or lucky coincidences aren't sufficiently wonderful to merit being called miracles. The event must result from an act of God's will rather than being a completely inexplicable chance happening. The requirement for God to be the agent acknowledges that a true miracle must have religious significance.
The problem with violation miracles
Modern science does not accept that natural laws can be violated. This creates a fundamental problem for this understanding of miracles.
Natural Laws Are Descriptive, Not Prescriptive:
Scientific laws don't dictate what must happen; they summarise what has been observed to happen. A natural law is a description of patterns we've noticed in nature, not a rule that nature must follow.
You cannot 'break' a law of nature in the way you can disobey the law of the land. With human laws, you can break them simply by choosing to disobey, and there will be consequences. But with natural laws, if an event doesn't conform to what a scientific law predicts, there are only three possibilities:
- The evidence for that particular event is faulty
- There is an unknown factor at play that the law doesn't take into account
- The law itself is inadequate and needs to be adapted or expanded
Scientific laws cannot be violated; they can only be revised.
John Hick's perspective:
Hick argues that if there appears to be an exception to a law of nature, the law simply expands to include the exception. Natural laws are made by observing what has happened, so violation miracles are impossible. If we observe something that appears to contradict a law of nature, our understanding of that law must be widened.
This means that if an event has no natural explanation at present, that's not evidence that a supernatural explanation is required - it just means science still has much to learn. What appears to be a violation is actually just a natural event we don't yet understand.
Hick on paranormal phenomena:
Hick's studies in paranormal and parapsychological phenomena (such as telepathy and psychokinesis) led him to see such events as similar to supposed miraculous happenings. As Paul Badham notes, an 'answered prayer' might be explained by telepathy in a more open, but still thoroughly naturalistic, worldview.
The 'God of the Gaps' Problem:
This suggests that what currently seems like miracles of healing might eventually be explained by some as-yet unknown power of the human mind. This would mean 'God' is being used as an explanation to fill gaps in scientific understanding but will become redundant as science progresses. This is sometimes called the 'God of the gaps' problem.
Natural laws as probabilistic:
Some argue that natural laws are probabilistic - they show what is likely to happen rather than what must happen. For example, it's probable that if you try to walk on water you'll sink, but until you try, you won't know for certain.
Keith Ward argues that even with probabilistic laws, it's reasonable to think some events are not produced by nature alone. An event or series of events could be so improbable that even probabilistic laws couldn't be formulated to include it. At the level of common sense observation, rare events well beyond available natural explanations would be candidates for miraculous action. It's logically possible that truly anomalous events could occur, and if they do, scientific explanation may simply have to ignore them or set them aside.
Anti-realist views of miracles
What is anti-realism?
An anti-realist approach to miracles denies the realist positions outlined above. Anti-realists argue:
General anti-realist principles:
- We cannot have knowledge of a mind-independent world because the phenomena observed by our senses are interpreted by the mind
- The mind is our only means of understanding anything
- There can be no commitment to anything unobservable (such as God as 'a being') because an unobservable 'something' has no cognitive content - we cannot talk meaningfully about unobservable things
Applied to miracles:
- We cannot have knowledge of a transcendent realm, so the idea of miraculous intervention in this world by a transcendent God is not sensible
- Miracles are 'in the mind' - they are mental states or attitudes understood in terms of psychology and sociology
- A miracle is something that lifts the spirit or transforms a community of people
The Key Difference in Anti-Realist Claims:
When an anti-realist talks about miracles, she is informing us about her state of mind. She is not making a claim about the event itself.
Paul Tillich: miracles as sign-events
Paul Tillich doesn't see God as 'a being' but rather as 'Being-itself' - existence itself. Therefore, he doesn't understand miracles as interventions in the world by a transcendent God. Instead, miracles are 'sign-events' that cannot be divorced from their religious context.
Tillich's definition of a miracle:
A miracle has three key characteristics:
- It is astonishing, unusual and shaking - but without contradicting the rational structure of reality
- It points to the mystery of being - expressing its relation to us in a definite way
- It is received as a sign-event in an ecstatic experience - it has religious significance for the person experiencing it
The Subjective Nature of Tillich's Miracles:
Keith Ward helpfully points out that all three of these marks stress the subjective element of apprehending a miracle rather than the objective nature of the event itself. The fact that something astonishes me, discloses to me the ultimate mystery of my being, and is received by me in a commitment of faith - these are all remarks about me and my reactions.
Tillich's view on supernatural interference:
Tillich explicitly states that miracles cannot be interpreted as supranatural interference in natural processes. Such a thing would destroy the natural structure of events. He wants to keep the seamless causal fabric of nature intact. So miracles become aspects of that fabric which astonish us and cause us to re-envision our inner relation to the ground of our being. The natural order remains intact; the miracle is mainly in the mind.
Why this is anti-realist:
- There is no commitment to God as 'a being' who intervenes from a transcendent realm
- No law of nature is violated
- Others would observe the same events but not see them as miracles
John Hick's perspective on miracles
Hick offers a helpful comment on the subjective nature of miracles: a miracle, whatever else it may be, is an event through which we become vividly and immediately conscious of God acting towards us. A startling happening, even if it involves a suspension of natural law, doesn't constitute a miracle in the religious sense if it fails to make us intensely aware of being in God's presence.
To be miraculous, an event must be experienced as religiously significant. Indeed, we may say that a miracle is any event that is experienced as a miracle, and this particular mode of experiencing is an essential element in the miraculous.
R.F. Holland's interpretation
Roy Holland (1923-2013) was one of the 'Swansea Wittgensteinians', a group of philosophers influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Holland illustrated his approach to miracles through stories and anecdotes.
Holland's Famous Train Story:
A child riding his toy motor-car strays onto an unguarded railway crossing near his house. A wheel of his car gets stuck down the side of a rail. An express train is approaching with signals in its favour, and a curve in the track makes it impossible for the driver to stop in time.
The mother comes out of the house, sees her child on the crossing and hears the train approaching. She runs forward shouting and waving. The boy remains seated in his car, engrossed in trying to pedal it free. The brakes of the train are applied and it comes to rest a few feet from the child.
The mother thanks God for the miracle and never ceases to think of it as such. However, she later learns there was nothing supernatural about how the brakes were applied. The driver had fainted - for reasons completely unrelated to the child's presence. He fainted because his blood pressure had risen after an exceptionally heavy lunch during which he'd quarrelled with a colleague. The change in blood pressure caused a blood clot to circulate. He fainted at that particular moment because this was when the clot reached his brain, and the brakes were applied automatically as his hand ceased to exert pressure on the control lever.
Holland's point:
It would be a confusion to understand this event as involving a violation of the natural order. What makes it 'miraculous' for the mother is that it's a beneficial coincidence which she interprets in a religious fashion. The mother believes in God, so her understanding of the event makes sense within the context of her religious life.
Importantly, she continues to think this way despite learning there was nothing supernatural about how the brakes were applied. Holland's account offers an anti-realist approach:
- The mother is aware God didn't cause the driver to faint
- She offers no supernatural rationalisation of what happened
- Nevertheless, she interprets what happened as God's response to human need
- As Wittgenstein might say, the event belongs to a form of life to which she subscribes, and in that context it's perfectly sensible to call it a miracle
Problems with anti-realist views
There are obvious problems with anti-realist accounts. Whether an event can be seen as a miracle depends entirely on how it's interpreted by those concerned. The mother sees it as a miracle because it reflects her desperate hope that the train will stop. But what about the driver? Suppose, as a direct result of the blood clot reaching his brain, he becomes severely disabled or dies. Would his relatives consider it a miracle?
The Challenge of Subjective Interpretation:
The problem with any anti-realist interpretation is that it varies according to the values, hopes and intentions of the people concerned. This raises questions about whether miracles have any objective reality or whether they exist purely as subjective interpretations.
The question of God's involvement
Even if miracles are natural events, or if they cannot be observed to be different from natural events, does that mean God had nothing to do with them? The answer is no. If every event is in some sense a miracle and God is somehow present within every event, then people might be divided according to how 'God-blind' they are.
Degrees of God-sightedness:
- God-blind people would have no sense of the presence of God
- Partially God-sighted people would be aware of God only in the most exceptional events - those where God is doing the equivalent of jumping up and down in front of them
- Those with slightly more sight would also be aware of God in less spectacular coincidences where they feel God's presence
- The truly God-sighted would be aware of God at all times, and for them everything would be miraculous
The Objective Reality of God's Action:
In the end, it's a simple matter of fact: either God is active in the world or not. The truth or falsity of that statement doesn't depend on whether any individual believes it.
Exam tips
Key Points for Exam Success:
- Be clear about the distinction between realist and anti-realist views - this is fundamental to answering questions on miracles
- Know the three types of realist miracles: coincidence, divine power working through people, and violation of natural law
- Understand why modern science rejects the idea that natural laws can be violated (they are descriptive, not prescriptive)
- Be able to explain Tillich's three characteristics of a miracle as a sign-event
- Know Holland's train story and be able to explain why it illustrates an anti-realist approach
- Consider the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches
- Be prepared to discuss whether miracles must involve supernatural intervention or can be natural events interpreted religiously
Remember!
Essential Concepts to Remember:
-
Realist views understand miracles as objective events in the world brought about by God or spiritual forces. When a realist speaks of a miracle, they are making claims about what actually happened in external reality.
-
Anti-realist views understand miracles as subjective interpretations of events. When an anti-realist speaks of a miracle, they are describing their own mental state or attitude, not making claims about the event itself.
-
Natural laws are descriptive, not prescriptive - they summarise what we've observed, they don't dictate what must happen. This means natural laws cannot be 'violated', only revised when new evidence emerges.
-
Tillich's sign-events emphasise the subjective element: miracles are events that astonish us, point to the mystery of being, and are received as religiously significant. The 'miracle' is mainly in our interpretation.
-
Both approaches have problems: Realist views struggle with scientific objections and moral questions about selective intervention. Anti-realist views make miracles entirely subjective, varying according to individual interpretation.